Have you ever been judged for saying or doing something that someone else thought was "wrong"?
What is right and what is wrong varies from person to person, and we all project our own moral standards onto other people's expectations.
Instead of imposing our moral judgment on others, we must instead choose to separate people from their behaviors. People can act and behave inappropriately or in ways we don't like, but the behavior is not the person: the behavior can change.
People being judged and put down because of their actions and having those flaws attributed to their sense of self made them feel less than confident and worthless.
Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies in life thanks to the strict rules we live our lives by.
What should we do?
Shouldn't we do?
We must do?
Should we get?
Shouldn't we do?
Etc.
We tell ourselves that we can't do something, that we shouldn't try something, or that we wouldn't be good at something else.
The thing to note is that most people have rules that aren't actually theirs; they are unconsciously adopted by the rules that were once imposed on them by others.
When they begin to respond to suggestions for change with
'I don't think I can x'
'I can't do it because of x'
We are not inflexible: we give voice to those rigid rules we believe in so deeply .
Just because you see something a certain way doesn't mean your perception is accurate. Reality is almost impossible for most of us to understand; we all have a unique perspective on the world that is distorted by our histories, values, ideas and ideologies.
That's why, when something bad happens in the world, everyone has a different response. Someone may say or do something that hundreds of people find offensive or wrong, but thousands of others don't see it as problematic. This isn't to say that either side is right or wrong, it simply explains the division of opinion:
People respond to experience more than reality.
In other words, people who may have greater sociopolitical experience of something similar to the offensive issue may use their experience as validation for its offensiveness, while those who are sheltered or inexperienced in this matter may not understand why it should be considered offensive. So, who's to say one is reality and the other isn't? Both opinions come from the real world, both arguments exist in reality, but both arguments do not respond to reality, but to their perception of reality.
It's easy for us to judge our past selves for being subpar; we beat ourselves up and down about all the things we didn't do, fail, or achieve personally and professionally. In these cases, we must practice self-compassion and acceptance of our past selves and accept that we couldn't have done better then, not with the resources we have now.
Just because we are wiser, more skilled, and better equipped today (and could, therefore, probably handle our past situations better), that doesn't mean our past selves were inferior.
We would never dream of scolding and shaming our six-year-old self for his poor grammatical and spelling skills or our five-month-old self for being so dirty and unable to walk because we accept that our child self was limited in his resources .
The same compassion must be extended to our adolescent and adult selves, even to ourselves from last week and yesterday.
We are always on a journey of growth and as we grow we acquire more resources. Don't judge your past self for what your present self is capable of.
Everything seems impossible when we first think about it .
The only reason people get what they want in life is that they choose to believe they are capable of the impossible and work to achieve it.
The answers didn't come to them in a dream or a textbook: they discovered that the answers themselves generate growth and hard work. This is how you will also make your impossible dream come true.
Don't allow yourself to be deprived by your previous failures - failure is part of the journey to success.
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